of the year when I would gladly have kept festival in London with
my friends. But my journey was destined to bring me an adventure
of a very remarkable character, which made me full amends for the
loss of Christmas cheer at home.

I crossed the Channel at night from Dover to Calais. The passage
was bleak and snowy, and the passengers were very few. On board
the steamboat I remarked one traveler whose appearance and manner
struck me as altogether unusual and interesting, and I deemed it
by no means a disagreeable circumstance that, on arriving at Calais,
this man entered the compartment of the railway carriage in which
I had already seated myself.

So far as the dim light permitted me a glimpse of the stranger's
face, I judged him to be about fifty years of age. The features
were delicate and refined in type, the eyes dark and deep-sunken,
but full of intelligence and thought, and the whole aspect of the
man denoted good birth, a nature given to study and meditation,
and a life of much sorrowful experience.

Two other travelers occupied our carriage until Amiens was reached.
They then left us, and the interesting stranger and I remained
alone together.

"A bitter night," I said to him, as I drew up the window, "and the
worst of it is yet to come! The early hours of dawn are always
the coldest."

"I suppose so," he answered in a grave voice.